


Just One Tomorrow

by alamorn



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 04:18:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14783463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Instead of landing in Langley, Lorraine finds herself getting off the plane in Berlin. Again, and again, and again.





	Just One Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



> The title is a bastardized version of Fall Out Boy's "Just One Yesterday," mostly because I laughed when I thought of it.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to B.

Lorraine stepped on the plane in England and off in Berlin, which was a neat trick, given that she’d expected America. She turned to ask Kurzfeld what the hell was going on, and found instead, her luggage from a week before, and a growing clog of annoyed Germans.

She grabbed her bag and walked. She walked out to the curb, where a Russian spy waited for her with a tiny car, where Delphine took pictures from the shadows. She did nothing so obvious as check her shoes, but she rolled her weight forward and back. The same clothes as a week ago. What the _fuck_ was happening?

She got in the car. She had the same conversation. She had the same fight. And when Percival leaned his head down to welcome her to Berlin, she shot him right in the fucking forehead.

“Shit,” she said, clawing her way out of the car. “Shit.”

It would be harder to frame him without the recordings or Delphine’s pictures. Harder, but not impossible. She took her bags from the car and left Percival to cool next to the Russian groaning his way to consciousness, tucked her gun into the Russian’s hand, and then she took Percival’s car.

She dumped it a few blocks away and hailed a cab. The driver dropped her at Percival’s bolthole and she began to pour through the secrets he’d collected there. She paused when she came to Delphine’s, and the blurry photos in her file. He’d scrawled a few notes — _French_ was one, _rookie_ another. _Going to get herself killed_ the third.

If Lorraine was back in Berlin, back to a week ago, then Delphine was alive. Lorraine thought that out carefully. Much like Delphine’s death, it affected her more than it should, more than it could. _Your eyes change when you tell the truth_.

Lorraine tucked the thought away for later. First, to find something she could use. The organizational system left something to be desired, though she had no doubt Percival had kept it that way deliberately. Going feral meant working without oversight, after all, and without oversight, it was only a bonus if other’s couldn’t use your filing. His porn magazines were scattered throughout, and she considered the idea that they were an integral part of the organization — considered, and then set it aside for later. She’d rather not have to flip through _Hustler_ if she didn’t have to.

She didn’t take anything from his apartment to her hotel room. That would be sloppy, and she’d already been too sloppy. What had she been thinking, killing him? Stupid question. She hadn’t been.

She’d been remembering Delphine’s bruised neck, and the grim fucking satisfaction it had given her to kill him the first time. Well, no use beating herself up over it — Percival had been nothing but trouble, and this would be easier without him.

She went to her hotel and changed. She went to the morgue and made the same incorrect claim on James’ body and ensured her stay. She took an ice bath to numb the pain in her back, half real, half remembered, and when she got out, there was no Percival waiting.

But Lorraine had to see the Watchmaker still, so she got her coat, and she went. She moved through her meeting with the Watchmaker on auto-pilot, and it was rote, tedious. For how horrible the past week had been, at least it had kept her on her toes.

When she got back to her hotel, she poured herself a drink. She still felt like she’d been badly beaten, though the bruises and cuts and sprains and strains and cracked ribs had disappeared when she stepped off the plane in Berlin. She sipped at her drink slowly this time, thinking. Without Percival, what would change? There would be no one to call the police if she investigated James’ apartment, though there was really no reason to do that. She’d have to get the watch from Bakhtin herself, which meant…well, it meant she’d have to find him.

 

That night she dreamt of James again. “You have to run,” he said again. “You have to run.”

She woke, covered in a cold sweat. The day spread out before her — without a visit to James’ apartment, without Percival to slow her down, she had so much time.

She spent it in Percival’s rooms, sorting through his things, looking for something, anything, she could use. Bakhtin would come to the Watchmaker, she was sure. Or sure enough to wager, anyway.

So she played through his tapes, and sorted through his files, and looked for signs of Spyglass. Where would he be? What was his name? Where did he keep his weaknesses? Surely Percival would have had that information. She could ask Merkel to find him, but it would be better to know where he was, especially since she was a new contact.

When she’d read enough of Percival’s notes to go cross-eyed, she went to Central Café and allowed Bremovych to talk to her. If he’d heard what she did to his spies and Percival, he didn’t let on, though he smiled more this time. When Delphine interrupted, Lorraine felt — a great tension ease inside of her.

She didn’t mean to relax, not with everything that was happening, not with the fear she was trying to ignore — why was she repeating the week? Was she caught in a coma dream? Had her concussions caught up with her? — But relax she did. She said little to Delphine’s chatter, relief making her loose and heavy and speechless, but when she took the card, she caught Delphine’s hand, traced a finger over the thin skin of her wrist. “You’re relentless,” she said, with a great deal more affection than she had the first time.

“ _Oui_ ,” Delphine said with a smile. Her pupils were wide in her dark eyes, and she glowed in the Central Cafe lighting. She was so gloriously alive.

But Lorraine needed to retrieve her watch from the Watchmaker to set up the meeting with Merkel, so, regretfully, she went.

 

It was easier to relax in her hotel room when she knew she hadn’t been bugged. No one was listening. She was as alone as she could be in Berlin.

A knock on her door startled her, and she reached for a gun she didn’t have yet.

When she answered it, it was Delphine standing there, the first real surprise of a dull second day in a surprising week.

“Delphine,” she said. “Come in.”

Delphine shifted nervously and glanced around the hall before she did so. When Lorraine closed the door, Delphine turned to her. “Sorry,” Delphine said. “I didn’t mean to follow you home.”

Lorraine didn’t say anything, just turned and walked back to the minibar, poured two glasses of Stoli. When she handed one to Delphine, she said, “So why did you?”

“You killed Percival,” Delphine said, voice hushed as if saying it made it true.

“Was he a friend?”

“He was an asshole,” Delphine said frankly. “But you don’t kill people for being assholes. Was he Satchel?”

“And what would a part-time translator, who wants to be a poet, or possibly a rockstar, know about something like that?” Lorraine asked, eyebrows going up.

“You knew that was a lie the moment it was out of my mouth,” Delphine said. “Don’t insult me. Was he Satchel?”

“What do the French know of Satchel?”

“Only what it is hard not to know. He exists and betrays, and changes everyone’s footing. He has such an impact on all our lives. You look around and see the space where a spy should be. Naming the space was not so hard.” Delphine touched her glass to her lips, but Lorraine didn’t see her drink. “Was it Percival?”

“Yes,” Lorraine said. “Would you like to help me prove it?”

 

As it turned out, Delphine had her own list of names, and pictures. There were some rather incriminating ones of Percival, though not quite as incriminating as the first time around.

It was all a rather different sort of mess from there — if she’d thought removing the knife in her back would make her plans go smoother, she’d wildly underestimated the sheer brutal cruelty of Berlin.

The next night she ambushed Bakhtin as he left the Watchmaker’s shop. She wore the watch to retrieve Spyglass, which almost went according to plan. Sadly, Bremovych was competent even without Percival guiding him. They were caught when they were almost to the border, and this time she ended up with a bullet wound too.

Spyglass died. Lorraine nearly died. Delphine lived.

Lorraine watched the Wall fall and then she got on a plane to London.

She stepped off in Berlin.

This time, she clenched her jaw so hard she felt a filling crack, which was a new pain for the city to inflict on her.

This time, she didn’t fight in the car. She went placidly to Bremovych, who said in German, “Comrade Satchel, I didn’t realize you were so beautiful.”

“Comrade Bremovych,” she replied, “I’m not speaking German right now, and I’m not fucking you either. Why did you want so badly to see me?”

His mouth curved in something that wasn’t a smile, and he switched to Russian. She’d been American longer than she’d been Russian, filed the accent off long ago, but the country was still there with her, somewhere deep inside, lodged like a bullet that had never been removed and the body had slowly healed around. “Bakhtin went rogue,” he said, “and that MI6 agent, Percival, he works for himself. I thought you might want the lay of the land.”

“Will you draw me a map?” she asked, acid dripping from every word. “How will I explain this to Percival? Was it your intention to blow my cover?”

Bremovych sighed. “I killed a man this morning,” he said. “Beat him to death with a skateboard. Most people speak to me with more respect.”

Lorraine was so fucking tired of this fucking game, of the egos and edges. She stared him down, didn’t apologize or excuse herself. When the silence stretched unbearably long, she said, “Find another mole, then.”

If he killed her, she wouldn’t have to do this whole damn week yet again.

He laughed without humor and waved one of his agents forward. The man — shit, the strong one, the one she’d fought and fought and finally run over with a car because the asshole just wouldn’t die — moved forward and handed her a folder. It had information she hadn’t known, things that would, actually, make this easier.

She didn’t let any of that show on her face. “Thanks,” she said. “Shall I tell him you tortured me?”

“Menaced,” said Bremovych. “When I torture someone, they don’t walk away.”

“Charming,” she said, and walked away.

She took a cab to her hotel and waited for Percival to come to her. When he did, she poured him a drink.

“Thought you’d be dead by now,” he said, taking it and sipping.

“What can I say,” she said, draining her own glass. She was so _tired,_ and English felt clumsy on her tongue. “I’m a hard woman to kill.”

“Doesn’t look like he tried too hard.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps he wants the list as badly as we do and would rather kill me when I have it.”

He seemed unconvinced but didn’t push further — perhaps he was thinking of the picture of him and James. Perhaps he had other pictures she hadn’t found, similarly revealing. She knew he didn’t start playing on his own side this week, after all. There was plenty of incriminating evidence lying around. She knew — she’d framed him twice, already.

She took the bug out of her coat when she got back to her hotel. He’d been just as quick and clever about it this time, but she knew what to look for now. The lapel sagged, just a little. She turned it over and over in her hands and then she leaned into it so her lips brushed the little case as she spoke. “Sloppy, Percival,” she said. “I expected better from a spy-killer.”

He was at her door half an hour later, the cast gone from his arm. His hand was in his pocket, and she wondered if it was the garrote or a gun. “Come in,” she said.

“That’s an ugly thing to call someone.”

“It’s an ugly thing to do. When did they turn you?”

“Are you accusing me of being Satchel?” he asked, grinning wide and insincere. He smiled when he was angry. That was another difference between them — Lorraine was alive, and he was dead, and he smiled when he lied and raged and she — well, Lorraine didn’t smile.

“Why else would you bug me?” she asked, pushing a glass of vodka towards him. It had been poured over his little bug. “Funny, that James died and you live. Did you take pleasure in betraying him?”

“I didn’t betray James,” Percival said, too furious even for a smile. “How do I know you’re not Satchel?”

“Trust no one,” she said, “and you’ll never be disappointed. They warned me about you. Feral, was the word. I don’t think you’re feral. You don’t have the guts. I think you just switched masters.”

“Quite an elaborate story,” he said. “How do you intend to prove it?”

“Mm,” she said, taking a sip of her own drink. “I think that Spyglass will have a lot to say, when I save his life.”

“You don’t know what’s on that list anymore than I do,” Percival said. “You’re bluffing.”

And Lorraine — Lorraine smiled.

 

She didn’t kill him, yet, which was an unbearable bit of ego on her part. She wanted to use him to find Spyglass, wanted to play him against Bremovych a while longer, she wanted — well, it didn’t matter what she wanted, because it didn’t work.

Percival was a damn good spy, and he thrived under stress. He slipped her, and went to Bremovych, and all the blackmail in the world didn’t matter to someone ready to burn the city down with him.

Spyglass died. She lost the watch. Delphine died. Lorraine watched the Wall fall with more ribs broken than whole and a concussion so bad she couldn’t even be upset about any of it.

She got on the plane.

She got off the plane in Berlin.

This time, she didn’t get in the car. Instead, she turned to the phone booth, knocked on the door. “Is that your bike?” she said, jerking her chin at Delphine’s motorcycle.

Delphine cradled her camera guiltily, staring slack jawed at Lorraine.

“Come on, rookie,” Lorraine said, as gently as she could. “Is that bike yours?”

“Yes,” Delphine said. “It is.”

“I find myself in need of saving,” Lorraine said. “Give a girl a ride?”

“There’s no room for your bags,” Delphine said, and Lorraine shrugged.

“I can buy new clothes.”

“And your tape recorder?”

“That’s in a bag small enough to carry.”

“You’d better get on, then,” Delphine said, and so Lorraine did.

This time, Lorraine thought, she would save Delphine. She’d done it once, and she could do it again. She wasn’t sure why losing Delphine hurt so much - she barely knew the girl - but it did.

And besides, she was sick to death of men.

Delphine said, “Where do you want to go?” and Lorraine couldn’t breathe for a moment with the force of the answer _anywhere but here_.

She told Delphine her hotel, and wrapped her arms around her waist. Delphine was warm and solid beneath her hands — a welcome change from the frigidity of everything else in this Godforsaken city. It was all distressingly solid though, she’d give it that. If it was a mental break from stress, or a concussion-caused hallucination, it was one she had no idea how to get out of by herself.

That wasn’t helpful thinking though, so she didn’t dwell on the idea. Easier to keep moving forward if she assumed there was a forward to move to, that if she could just get the steps right, she could finally, finally get off the plane in America.

When they arrived and Lorraine got off and headed for the door, Delphine looked at her, so out of her depth that Lorraine leaned down and kissed her.

When she pulled away, Delphine said, “What was that for?”

Lorraine couldn’t say something like, _you’re the only bright spot in this shithole of a week_ , or _if I lose you again, I’ll go madder than I already have_ , so she just smiled and said, “You’re a beautiful woman, Delphine. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“I never told you my name.”

“No,” Lorraine said, voice even despite the fuck up. “You didn’t.”

“Will you tell me how you know it?” Delphine asked, and she looked like a real spy for a moment, hard about the eyes. Suspecting a mole, suspecting a betrayal, _suspecting_.

Lorraine found herself speaking before she could think of what to say. “I’ve done this before. Quite literally. I’m stuck in this week. We’ve met, we’ve fucked, you’ve died.”

“How?” Delphine asked.

“Percival. He frames you for bugging me, I tell you, you call him and threaten him with blackmail - you’re quite good at surveillance when you put your mind to it. If you survive, you might be a great spy yet.”

Delphine’s eyes flickered. She didn’t believe her, not yet. “Do they know you’re crazy?”

“If I ever get back to London,” Lorraine said, “I would be happy to be declared incompetent.”

Delphine looked her over carefully and shook her head. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but nothing came out. Lorraine said, “Thanks for the ride,” and left before it could get any more uncomfortable.

Either Delphine would believe her, or she wouldn’t. With Lorraine’s luck, at the end of the week it wouldn’t matter either way.

 

Percival arrived at her hotel late, so she told him as much. “You’re late,” she said, when he picked the lock on her door and slipped in.

“You disappeared on me,” he said, lighting a cigarette and starting to poke around, shameless at being caught, shameless at his snooping. Showing her what a threat he wasn’t. It wouldn’t work again.

“You were late,” she repeated. “It’s a bit of trend with you, isn’t it? I found another ride.”

“Not with those Russians who were waiting for you?”

“You knew they’d be there and you were still late?”

He shrugged, insincere mirth pasted over his face. “Is it a sin if I wanted to see how you’d handle it?”

“A professional discourtesy,” she said, “but then I didn’t expect much else.”

She went through the motions. She’d done it enough times that it didn’t require all her attention, except during fights. But she knew, now, where people would be, mostly. How they’d react. Her first time through, she’d been off balance the entire time, forced into reaction after reaction. By the fourth, her footing was sure enough to change the steps without fear.

Something had trapped her here, in Berlin, in this week, and she wanted to know what. Of course, the easiest explanation was a head injury, that she was in a hospital bed somewhere, trapped in her own mind, but that left her without options or hope. Better to assume the supernatural. God or a ghost, she didn’t much care which.

But what did it want? She had no leverage, no way in. And she wasn’t about to pray.

By the time she was pulling the watch from Percival’s limp wrist she was out of ideas. Then she paused and looked at the watch a little longer than she normally did.

“Is it you?” she asked. “Are you the cause of all this?”

Much like praying, there was no answer.

She didn’t go home. She didn’t go to the airport. She went to the Watchmaker, still awake and watching the Wall fall on the television.

She tossed the watch to him. “Tell me about it. Not the list, the watch.”

Greed sparked in his eyes but he only put on his magnifying glasses and a light. She watched him work, taking the watch apart with careful tools, so small and delicate that it felt like watching a surgery.

“Hm,” he said, after long enough that her adrenaline was draining away, leaving her sagging with tiredness.

“What?” she asked, jolting back to full alert.

“Nothing — only — there’s something strange in the mechanism. It looks like it rewinds itself,” he said. “A watch like this should need winding from a human hand.”

“Hm.” The noise was deliberate and noncommittal. “I’ll take it back now.”

“I could move it for you,” he offered, glancing up from the innards of the watch. “I’m sure I could find you a buyer.”

“It’s not for sale,” she said. “Put it back together. Now.”

“What a pity,” he said, and did as she said.

She didn’t go to the airport the next day. Instead she found Delphine, still alive, still in Berlin. “Do you believe me?” she asked.

Delphine’s eyes flicked over her. “Your eyes change when you’re telling the truth,” she said, an echo that made Lorraine ache all over, from her bruises to her unused heart.

“It’ll get me killed someday,” Lorraine finished. “But not today.”

“Will you come in?” Delphine asked, standing back from the door. The room was rumpled, but not from struggle. She was packing. With the fall of the Wall, she’d been told to come home. Something tight in Lorraine’s chest…eased.

She stepped inside and pulled out the watch. It always felt like it should be heavier than it was, with the weight of the names and careers and deaths it carried. But it was only a touch heavier than a normal watch.

Delphine’s eyes went wide and greedy. She lifted a hand to touch it and Lorraine allowed her to stroke the smooth glass of the watch-face before she pocketed it once more. “Am I in there?” Delphine asked.

“Of course,” Lorraine said. “So am I.”

Delphine glanced at her. “A mean feat for a woman who only just came to Berlin.” She resumed her packing, and Lorraine took a seat on the bed.

They hadn’t fucked this time around. Delphine was understandably wary, and not trying so hard for leverage. Lorraine wanted, painfully, to touch her, to smooth her hands over Delphine’s unblemished throat.

“Spend the night with me,” Lorraine said and Delphine paused in her packing.

“You have a flight to catch,” she said.

Lorraine shrugged. “If I’m telling the truth, I’ll be touching down in Berlin in the morning. If I’m wrong, I’ll reschedule. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered it.”

“I’ve considered it,” Delphine said, walking over to where Lorraine said. Lorraine spread her knees obligingly, and Delphine stood between them, brushing Lorraine’s hair out of her face and running a gentle finger over the swelling of her black eye. Then she pressed. Lorraine hissed at the starburst of pain. “If you know what’s coming, how did you get this?”

“Knowledge of the future does not block a fist,” Lorraine said dryly. “But you should have seen me the first time.”

“Didn’t I? I thought we fucked.”

“Repeatedly. But it doesn’t matter much if you don’t remember.” Lorraine took Delphine by the waist. She was warm and solid under her hands. _Alive_ , she thought. _Alive, alive_.

“It always matters,” Delphine said. Her voice was getting lower and her head was too, dipping closer to Lorraine’s own. “What did I want from you?”

“An in,” Lorraine said, and tugged her closer. “An orgasm.” Her hand shifted from waist to ass and squeezed. “To warn me.”

“I must have liked you,” Delphine murmured, a scant inch from her lips.

“Must have,” Lorraine agreed, and closed the distance.

She did not get on the plane. She spent the night in Delphine’s arms, watching the clock when she wasn’t watching Delphine.

She blinked, exhaustion rising up, and she was stepping off the plane into Berlin.

 _The watch rewinds itself_ , she thought, and got into the Russian’s car.

She let Percival help her out, and took only a warning shot at his head. She put her things in her apartment and went to the morgue and stared at James’ body on the slab.

She found herself regretting giving him up, more bitterly than she had the moment she first heard of his death, the moment she first saw his body. It had been too many Goddamn times, staring down at the neat hole in his head, his mangled body — this time, she regretted it selfishly, hatefully. If he was still alive, she wouldn’t be trapped in this nightmare of a city, this horrible week.

Berlin was too fucking small. She hadn’t thought she could be claustrophobic in a city, but that was just another lesson Berlin had taught her. The Wall was always at the edge of her vision, heavy enough that sometimes she found herself gasping for breath.

“A coworker,” she said, and gave the woman her incorrect papers, and the game was on.

Much like the first time, she wanted the watch. She wanted the watch, and she wanted Delphine to live, and Spyglass, even if he would complicate things.

She didn’t hand Percival her coat. She swept her room for bugs every time she came back to it. She didn’t go to James’ apartment. She allowed Delphine to save her, and then she pinned her to the wall and said, “You’re in over your head, and you look like you need saving.”

Delphine gasped. “I know more than you think.”

“And it’ll get you killed,” Lorraine agreed. “I’d rather you lived.”

“Why?”

Lorraine kissed her. The she went to Delphine’s apartment and worked her fingers and her tongue into Delphine’s heat, chasing it, reveling in it. She sucked bruises onto Delphine’s throat, so they bloomed dark and beautiful, and oh so alive.

She left Delphine languid in bed with a final kiss, and then she went to Percival’s place and let herself in.

He looked up from the microfiche reader, half surprised, half expectant. “Hello, Satchel,” he said. “I should have expected you.”

“You should have,” she agreed, heading leisurely towards him. She didn’t have a gun, but neither did he. “One traitor should always know another.”

“Traitors could look out for each other,” he said, hands straying across his desk. She clicked her tongue and he stilled, though she was certain he’d waited till he had something within his grasp. “What do you say? We both walk away, no one else the wiser?”

“Oh Percival,” she said, stopping next to a floor lamp. “That’s not how the game is played.”

“It’s Berlin,” he said. “We make our own rules.”

“There’s only one problem,” she said. “I really don’t like you.”

She grabbed the lamp and swung and it got uglier from there. Not as ugly as the stairway, her first time through, but Percival was desperate, and almost as good as she was.

In the end, it was ungraceful and more violent than she would have liked, but he was dead, and she was alive, and everything else could be built from there.

She reassembled the watch, slid it on her wrist, and went back to her hotel room. She gave Delphine a call, and then Merkel, and then she slept and dreamt of London, of Paris, of America.

The next day, she retrieved Spyglass. There was no one to betray her, and she knew where Bremovych would put his men. She got him through, the both of them uninjured.

Before she took him to the safe house, she turned to him, and said, “You know who I am?”

“Lorraine Broughton,” he said. He didn’t look like a man in possession of an atomic bomb of information. He looked like a tourist, or a college professor. He looked frightened, and like he’d been frightened for a long time. “Yes,” he said, “I know who you are.”

“Will you tell them?”

“You brought me across the Wall,” he said. “You brought my family. I can forget a name or two. Who would blame me, if hundreds of others remain?”

“Just so,” she said, and took him to see his family.

 

She met Delphine by the remains of the Wall. This was history, crunching under her boots. She breathed in the dust, the gunpowder smell of fireworks, the drying champagne. She listened to Delphine snap pictures for a moment, and then she held the watch up to the light.

It didn’t look like the most important thing in the world. It certainly didn’t look like something that could have trapped her in the same week, time after time after time. It just looked like a watch.

Well, if she was wrong, she’d have another chance. She dropped it on the ground and stomped, grinding her heel through the watch face until the gears spun across the ground.

“Why did you do that?” Delphine asked. Her camera hung around her neck, but she’d tucked her hands in her coat pockets. She looked tired and cold and very alive. Lorraine kissed her for the joy of it, felt Delphine’s lips warm under her own.

“The Wall is down,” she said. “The world has changed. And that list has caused enough trouble.”

She got on a plane. She got off a plane.

London spread out around her, the smell and feel of it new and different. She floated through the debrief. She floated through Paris. And then, when she got on the plane to Langley, she gave Kurzfeld Spyglass’s name and address and floated off the plane in America.

A week later — and what a wonderful thing that was, a week of different conversations, of moving smoothly on with one thing after another, no jarring stops and starts, a week of healing naturally — she found herself glorying in it, and had to remind herself that no one else knew what had happened. A week later, a package arrived in the mail for her.

It was a photograph, printed in black and white on glossy paper, of herself at the outdoor market, examining an apple with great concentration. She’d had no idea she was being followed and it showed — a softness around the eyes, a lack of tension around the mouth.

On the back was written, _You said something about potential?_

Lorraine smiled.


End file.
